The usefulness and longevity of a social networking system depends upon both the quantity and quality of user information available on the system. If either the quantity or quality of such content suffers, the system will similarly suffer as users will become frustrated or disengaged.
One such content problem results when user profiles have missing, incomplete, or inaccurate user attribute information, such as a user's city of residence or school affiliation. Without such information, it becomes increasingly difficult for users to locate friends or contacts on the social network using search functionalities, and the social networking system is less able to make contact suggestions or provide user-customized information to its user base.